


A Flower of Flesh and Blood

by Sjukdom



Series: Fifty Something, Well-Aged Wine [4]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Physiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 05:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6361654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sjukdom/pseuds/Sjukdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Blood is life. Hugo told me that million times. I decided to help you. To give you a new life.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flower of Flesh and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> This story goes as a prequel for the whole "Fifty Something, Well-Aged Wine" series. It is also based on an anonymous prompt that featured Gobblepot and Maroon 5's "Animals" song and/or music video.

Jim awoke to the feeling of liquid around him, embracing him as tenderly as the arms of an invisible lover would have embraced. It wasn’t water, didn’t feel like water, it was too sticky and slimy and some parts of his body felt like they were put in a weird kind of armor. The liquid was drying out on them, creating a fragile shell, cracking with each his blind movement. The liquid was everywhere, in his hair, his eyes, nostrils, upon his tongue and it tasted of bitter salt and rotting flesh. Jim opened his mouth and the liquid poured into it, the foul stream falling down into his throat. He felt that his eyelashes were stuck together by more of that thing that was able to dry out and felt like a slime, produced by the twitching mass of hundreds half-squashed caterpillars.

Or like a sperm.

Jim managed to rip his eyes open, his heart pounding, mouth salivating from coming nausea. His movements made a metallic kind of echo that multiplied and repeated itself again and again. The first thing he saw was his own heaving chest and knees, protruding from the pool of that liquid he was surrounded with. Jim stared at his own body blankly. He was dressed the last time he was conscious, dressed in proper clothes. Now they were replaced with another kind of costume. Crimson one, wrapping him tightly, glistening in the dim light. Cracking with each his movement, the matte parts of it. It flowed down his knees, turning into the pool, its fabric so soft it certainly couldn’t be made by a human being.

Except it was. Not by a human, but from. Perhaps. Not from a single one, obviously, for this exotic fabric, this liquid was actually blood. Jim was lying in huge amount of blood in some kind of bathtub, was covered with blood from head to toe, the dark, the red, the disgusting. It shone around him, disturbed by his jerking limbs, a kind of shine that was beyond darkness. Jim gasped in horror and gulped more blood involuntarily, choked on it and started to cough, hoping he would puke. He imagined his insides soiled with this red mud and was dying to get rid of it, but the gag reflex didn’t work, leaving him only eternal sickness and no cleansing.

Jim heard steps not far from where he was. The had a metallic clank to them, followed by clinging of chains and sounds of the flesh slowly tearing apart under its own weight. Jim looked around desperately and noticed the hooks, hanging from the ceiling and gruesome shapes on them, bodies so perversely transformed they seemed to be alien to this world. He spat out some blood that filled his mouth and it splashed upon the white floor. The steps came near, the meaty lumps on the hooks swished and danced as if he was attending a special ball for hangmen. Staring at them, Jim finally started to put things together. The horrible things were animal carcasses. The blood he was bathing in must have been animal, too. He would sigh with relief if there wasn’t blood in his nostrils, making it hard to breath and depriving him of all other smells but rot and death.

A slaughterhouse, then. His mouth was watering heavily, saliva running from the corners of his mouth like two transparent tiny rivers, flowing into the vast crimson ocean. He knew he should gulp, but didn’t dare to. His stomach already seemed to be full with blood he had swallowed while he was semi-conscious and it was pulsating with disgust. Jim thought about putting his fingers down his throat to throw up at last, but his hands felt numb, chained together with handcuffs. The nearest lump on the hook rocked back and forth and someone appeared behind it. A face came in sight to be hidden again immediately by the mass of dead flesh.

Jim coughed out the familiar name, that came from his mouth with another portion of horrible liquid. It splattered itself on the floor, the letters of the name vaguely distinguishable in small bloody drops, mixed with Jim’s own spit.

“Oswald.”

The sounds he made were barely human, but Oswald could understand them perfectly. He walked towards the tub and grabbed its edge to hold his balance. The light was right behind his head and his face was in the deep shadow.

“Hi”, he said with a smile in his voice. “How do you like your bath?”

Jim felt the nausea crawling up and prayed for it to release him from the sickening thing his insides contained.

“Not much? Why?” Oswald drew his face near and his hair and skin smelt of rot, too, but of a slightly different kind. Sweeter. Flowery. Jim imagined the cemetery, grown with such flowers, sucking their life juices from human corpses. “Blood is life. Hugo told me that million times. You believe him, right?”

He didn’t sound insane or hysterical. Mocking, yes. But relaxed and satisfied. Oswald reached out and took Jim by his chin, ignoring blood that smeared his fingers.

“Blood is life. You need a new life, Jim. In this one you will end in Blackgate as soon as they find you.”

He spoke quickly, but pronounced everything accurately. The scent coming from him didn’t block the stench, but added its own notes to it, making it bearable and even pleasant in a weird kind of way. Jim breathed it in, until it filled his lungs like a mist. Suddenly he understood what it was like. Lilies. Sweet, intoxicating, dead smell of lilies. The stink of coagulating blood matched Jim much better.

“I know you’d never ask me for help. But I would appreciate it highly, you know”, Oswald went on, clutching Jim’s chin harder. “Nobody's perfect, huh?”

Oswald sighed.

“I decided to help you, though. To give you a new life. No more lies -”

Oswald stopped abruptly and straightened himself a little. Light was pouring down on him, illuminating only the half of his face as if he was wearing a silk black mask.

“It means nothing for you, I guess. Anyway, you would end locked up in Blackgate after being showed around like a disgrace to the badge. You know it, right? Barnes would never believe you've been set up.”

The smell of dark blood on his skin, white as lilies Oswald was smelling with. He was the flower with petals of skin and flesh, bathing in blood of the others that was now the part of him. A flower of flesh and blood. Blood is life. He feasted on it, fed on it, growing and blooming, ready to burst out with nectar.

The nausea finally reached its peak and Jim luckily managed to bend over the edge of the tub before he threw up for the first time. He felt his bowels spasming frantically, pumping the blood out and he vomited again and again, choking, gasping for air to ease the burning sensation in his throat. The stench now was even more foul, of blood mixed with his own stomach acid. Oswald helped him to bend further and kept him in place with one hand, stroking his hair with the other. This caress made Jim even more sick, sick with guilt and self-loathing, sick with himself. He would have said to Oswald how sorry he was, but his throat was too tight with thick masses of blood.

When everything finally ended, Oswald put Jim’s back carefully against the tub. He was sniffling and coughing, tears streaming down his cheeks. Oswald waited for him to catch his breath a little and went on as if nothing happened.

“A car awaits us outside. There is my… A man I can trust. He will drive us home. A new home. For a new life.”

The visible side of Oswald’s face twisted in a smile. He didn’t ask for Jim’s consent. He knew him better than Jim himself did. Jim inhaled deeply. The smell of lilies came back. A ghost of future, teasing him from the bloody mass of the past.

“Why?” he said, more distinct now. Oswald looked him up and down, choosing one of the many answers to this question. Then he shrugged.

“I couldn’t leave you without some kind of punishment, right? And I couldn't let you rot away in this prison.”

Jim cracked a smile through the mask of drying blood on his face. Oswald reached out for him and indicated him to raise his hands. The handcuffs slipped from his wet wrists nearly all by themselves. Jim refused Oswald’s help and crept out of the tub on his own advance. He wished he could thank Oswald right now, say how grateful he was now, how blind he was before, hug him, but he was too dirty and stinky. Later, then. Now they had all the time in the world.

He stood up and opened his arms to wake his numb muscles from their sleep. Like a flower greeting the dawn of a new spring.


End file.
